A lot has been said about 'when Linux is ready for the average
users desktop'. Mostly inferring that this is a good idea to begin
with. I think not.
What needs to be happening (IMO) is the users and desktop need to
get ready for Linux, et al. It appears, most seem to think that Linux
has come a long way in the last few years. Some in a Winblows sense.
I sort'a kind'a agree. Linux use to (only) run on quality, standard
hardware. Now it's tryin to run on any ol' thing ... kind'a like a
Wintendo clone. Lin-modems, lin-printers, lin-sound, lin-video,
lin-mice, lin-...., etc.
While Linux and most other Un*x flavor OS's have progressed
remarkedly in the last few years, the desktop systems have been goin'
further an' further south. Most of y'all recognize the 'winmodem'
situation, but fail to see that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
There's a sh!+load'a win-hardware out there now, and the situation's
become worse and worse over just the last few years. Many of y'all are
tryin to run Linux on win-hardware. Specially those that post " but it
works great in Win..." This is a USER problem, IMO.
Keep this in mind when you evaluate Linux's climb in usability.
It's been a real hard up hill climb against hardware that is more'n
more intended, and designed _only_ to be used with Windoze. IOW's,
goin' south. Hell, a lot of it won't even work with NT or DOS. Heck, a
lot of it doesn't work too well with Winblows!
Situation's becoming so bad that even Wintendo 95 thru ME is havin'
problems runnin on the newest hardware offerings. While I'm convinced
that the BIG ready mades (ie, Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc) are the most
overpriced cheap junk fosted on the unsuspecting public .... they have
one MAJOR factor goin for them. They all design their limited,
substandard, proprietary crap ... to work with Winblows.
*This makes most of the people happy, most of the time.*
What I believe many of y'all think of as 'ready for the desktop'
Windoze doesn't work with any hardware... any hardware is intended
to work with Winblows. Well, sort'a. In the last year or so with the
advent of 'Moore's Law' processors, and chipset/ram/motherboard/
peripheal's inabiliity to adequately keep up, the public (read, USER)
who's willing to accept this as progress, and also accept cheapness,
corner cutting, substandard (read, 'onboard' or 'built-in') hardware as
OK ...... IMO, that's the bigger PROBLEM.
I fault *uncle billy* for fostering this whole mess, and y'all that
blindy suck in the advertised latest and greatest (cheapest?) hardware
without really investigating it. This is the main reason that I
believe I'm in the majority when I suspect *USER*, hardware, operating
software (_in that order_) as the cause of most computing failures,
_any_ OS.
--
Tom Brinkman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Galveston Bay
